TORONTO — As farm program emphasis switches from income support to competitiveness, innovation and the environment, Ottawa plans to shift more of the responsibility for designing those programs to the provinces.
During a testy exchange at the Canadian Federation of Agriculture summer directors’ meeting July 26, assistant deputy agriculture minister Greg Meredith was challenged to promise that any savings from AgriStability changes would be reinvested in agricultural programs.
And who will decide how those savings are reinvested? asked Norm Hall, president of the Agricultural Producers Association of Saskatchewan.
Read Also
Trade war may create Canadian economic opportunities
Canada’s current tariff woes could open chances for long-term economic growth and a stronger Canadian economy, consultant says — It’s happened before.
Meredith said some of the projected savings — estimated at more than $2 billion over five years at both levels of government will be reinvested, but not all.
Programs to decide how those non-business risk management funds are to be spent increasingly will be designed by the provinces, he said.
“Our intention at the federal level is to see the provinces taking more responsibility in deciding how those funds are invested,” he said. “There are different priorities in different provinces and we don’t see one size fitting all.”
However, Ottawa will continue to be the main program funder.
There is no proposal to amend the federal-provincial program funding formula that sees Ottawa paying 60 percent of jointly financed programs.
The intention to shift program design and implementation responsibilities to the provinces mirrors the federal decision earlier to continue to send escalating amounts of cash to provinces for health care, but for the first time in more than four decades, attach virtually no strings to how the provinces can spend the money.
That decision put responsibility for health-care reform and implementation directly in provincial laps.
The federal argument is that under the Canadian constitution, health is a provincial jurisdiction and Ottawa should not be meddling in program design or national standards.
However, that constitutional argument does not explain the decision to download more agricultural decision-making to the provinces.
Under the British North America Act, agriculture is the original shared constitutional jurisdiction and Ottawa has traditionally been considered the senior partner, with a responsibility to ensure national programming.
